


To The Morning Light

by Pyrix



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Gen, i cant write more than like 250 words or something its a curse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 22:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9570212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyrix/pseuds/Pyrix
Summary: A series of FE:Fates drabbles.Chapter 9: Corrin, sword handling, and Birthright.





	1. Leo & Xander

It's plain to see that Leo has never held a sword before. His hands are soft and free of calluses, his grip is all wrong, and his stance is awkward. It wouldn't take much more than a strong breeze to knock him off balance, and for Xander it takes much less, just a gentle rap of his training sword on Leo's leg before the boy goes tumbling to the ground. Xander waits for him to get back up, but instead the only thing that rises is a high pitched whine. "Why do I have to learn to use a sword?" Leo grumbles. His face is pressed against the sparring room's marble tiles, but from what Xander can see of it, it's twisted into a moue of displeasure. "I have my magic. You know I'm good at it. I don't need to learn swords, too. My enemies couldn't reach me if they wanted to." Xander chuckles and squats, picks up Leo's sword and turns it over in his hands. 

"That won't always be the case," he says, slowly. Carefully, too, because he knows Leo's pride is easy to damage and hard to heal. "In battle, you can't account for everything. Sure, maybe you'll never need to use a sword. Perhaps it will rust away from inside your scabbard. But it's not a guarantee. When there's a blade swinging down at you at full force, I doubt any tome could deflect it. And that's why you're 'learning swords'."

"But I'll have Brynhildr," Leo protests, though weaker now. "You're the one with Siegfried. You have the blade business covered, don't you?"

 _I hope so,_ Xander wants to say. Because there is something very different about striking down a figure with magic from afar and looking into a man's eyes as you run him through, sweat and sheer force making your hand slide down your hilt until you can feel blood coating your greaves. Organs, threatening to push out. That last little gasp for life, then--extracting your sword. Flicking off the guts. Doing it again. Rinse and repeat.

"Better safe than sorry," Xander replies instead. "Now, don't you think you've been lying there too long? Get up, and I'll show you the proper stance." Another groan, a brief eye-roll.

"Yes, brother."


	2. Niles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niles fucks up.

Fourth job that goes wrong, that’s when Niles loses the eye. They were lucky the past three times. Nothing more than a twisted ankle or two and a couple days without food. This time, though. This time, there’s a dog. This time, there’s a guard in the wrong place at the wrong time. This time, there’s a spear rushing towards his face.

He’s lucky he doesn’t die outright, but when the fever comes Niles wishes he did. The thieves have a policy: they split the goods, but you sew your own damn wounds unless you’re grievously injured and too damn valuable to lose. Niles isn’t valuable enough. Not yet. So he lies in an abandoned shack and when the pain bursts through his skull he grits his teeth and deals. 

It doesn’t heal right, naturally. The scar tissue webs and cracks over what’s left of his ruined eye, uneven and bumpy to the touch. It’s grotesque, it’s disgusting, it takes his features and warps them into something less handsome, verging on pathetic. Weak. 

The second Niles can walk more than a few meters from his bed, he buys an eyepatch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a bunch of drabbles saved up. also thanks kami for making my chicken ass do this


	3. Takumi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hashtag insecurity

The Fuujin Yumi is not a kind weapon. It's divine power condensed into a bow, great cutting winds shaved down and curved until they rest easy in the palm of your hand like horses broken in. You have to tame the bow before you can draw the full potential of its strength. It's said that the first wielder could slice mountains with a single arrow.

Takumi never learned how to bring it to heel. Raijinto sang and hummed and sparked in Ryoma's hand, more a living creature than a sword, but the Fuujin was quiet, only blossoming into life when he called it. "It takes time to forge your connection," Ryoma said, but when Takumi's seventeenth summer came and passed and Fuujin remained silent, Takumi wondered if it wasn't time that mattered but the person. 

By right the Fuujin should have been Hinoka's. She passed it in favour of the traditional naginata the Sky Knights used, claimed she never had a fondness for ranged combat when the priests asked her why. A lie, of course; she was a crack shot with a bow, but Hinoka always put her family first and she had seen the awful tightness drawn around Takumi's mouth when Ryoma took Raijinto into his hands for the first time. So the Fuujin Yumi became his, not by birthright or trial but because of pity, and Takumi was certain it had never forgiven him for it. 


	4. Leo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hashtag double insecurity

Raising the dead was a fickle process. You had to have the right ingredients and enough power to actually do it, not to mention a fine-tuned knowledge of the dark arts. Father first made him use the bodies of executed criminals. They were a waste otherwise, he said, so they might as well serve a purpose in this life. Leo spent days in the dungeons learning the right incantations, nothing but corpses and a melting candle to keep him company. When he finally succeeded, using the body of a woman who'd been arrested for theft, Father smiled at him like back in the good days before the wars. Placed a clawed gauntlet on Leo's shoulder and commanded, "Do it again." So Leo did, and in weeks he could raise four at the same time. Then seven. Then twelve.

When he could raise thirty at once he was sent out alone to handle a small Hoshidan village by the border. Father waved aside Niles' and Odin's protests with a single sweep of his arm, fixed Leo with a firm stare. His eyes were dark and sunken-in like flooded graves. "You will raze it to the ground. No survivors."

Leo returned only five days later, stinking of death. In the throne room he tilted his head up and said, I have done as you asked. 

"Any problems?"

None, your Highness. None at all. And Father smiled that kind little smile again, ruffled Leo's mop of blonde hair, and Leo pretended not to notice the clammy chill of his fingers.


	5. Leo & Elise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw child death

It takes the mortician longer than usual despite all of his expertise. When Leo comes to inquire about his progress, he hems and haws for a few moments under his lord's cold stare before buckling down, his assistants watching nervously from the sidelines as he rattles off fact after fact. The damage from Siegfried was extensive. Her chest is caved in. Her ribs are shards. The force of the blow knocked her spine out of alignment, and her body almost entirely lacks blood from when she was left to bleed out on the marble. In short, she is a mess of a girl. 

It's one of the more difficult cases, says the mortician, wringing gloved hands. But yes. Of course, your Highness, we'll get it done. She will be perfect. I've had worse.


	6. Xander/Laslow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> inigo seduces his boss

"I want to see you dance for me." Inigo chokes on air. 

"Wh-what?" he squeaks. "What do you--I don't--I mean, how do--" A raised hand cuts off his frantic spluttering. His lord is smiling, a soft, teasing little tuck of his mouth that he rarely shows. It only serves to make Inigo even more flustered. 

"I saw you, a few nights back. You were dancing in a storage room. It was lovely," Xander says. "And so, I wish to ask if you would indulge me and dance it again." I could never deny you anything, is Inigo's first thought, and perhaps Xander sees it projected on his face because his smile grows an inch. Inigo sighs, resigned. 

"I don't even have music," he mumbles. With a quick glance at Xander sitting behind his desk, Inigo begrudgingly gets into position. He curves his body just so, raises his hands and twists them like a flower, petals curling open. His mother taught him many dances before she died. This isn't her special one, the one he never fully learned. It's another type of dance altogether. A...more embarrassing type. But there's no backing out now. The beat's started in his head, and Inigo surrenders himself. His hips swivel. Tambourines rattle in his mind's eye as he moves, sinuous as a snake, abs stretching with every roll of his body. A step forward, step back, turn, twist your head to look over your shoulder as you extend your neck. Smile for the audience; come hither, don't you want some of this? More movement. The drums come in--now. Feet hitting the floor in a furious rhythm, hands beckoning and whirling through the climax. Finally, the drums fade. Tambourines drop. Inigo opens his eyes on the final note, panting, face no doubt a furious red. His hair is probably a mess too, but that doesn’t matter so much because Xander is wearing an expression Inigo has never seen before, eyes dark and hungry. It freezes Inigo in place, holds him captive until Xander coughs and looks away. When he looks back up, his face is normal again, if tinged pink. His eyes are still intense. 

"That was stunning," he murmurs. "Thank you.” 


	7. Hinoka

Hinoka never expected to be Empress. The way she figured it, things would go something like this: after a long and fruitful reign, Empress Mikoto would pass peacefully in her sleep. Ryoma would take the crown, marry a suitable woman, and have heirs. Hinoka would be free to live the rest of her life commanding her Sky Knights, unburdened by the entanglements of court. On the off chance that something happened to Ryoma (Divine Dragon forbid), Hinoka would step aside for Takumi. Simple. Even when the war had been at its peak and the Nohrians were gaining ground, Hinoka had never seriously contemplated the possibility of losing. 

None of that happened, of course. Takumi flung himself off the Great Wall of Suzano, and Ryoma committed seppuku with his beloved Raijinto. His corpse was still smoking when Hinoka found him, curled over himself like a beetle. The scent of cooked meat made her gag, and behind her she could hear the stifled sobs of the castle's servants. 

Ryoma had been beloved. A paragon of what it meant to be a Hoshidan man, skill with the blade unmatched by any in their kingdom. And he'd been bested by a traitor in the halls of his own castle. What a bitter pill to swallow.

"Take him to the priests," Hinoka managed to choke out, waving a hand in his general direction. "I think--I'm going to be sick." One of the female attendants placed a soothing hand on her back and led her out, rubbing circles, but Hinoka barely registered the touch. In her mind the brilliant vision of their future was curled and smoking, and she could still smell the burning no matter how hard she breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know shit about beetles


	8. Keaton

Keaton spends the bulk of his childhood in one of Nohr's many mountain ranges, great craggy things spotted with trees and bushes. By the time the wolfskins move on, his collection numbers around a hundred and twenty. Abner calls it trash, says wolfskins have no need for dumb rocks. 

"Save space for important stuff like food," he reprimands Keaton. "You can't eat pebbles." 

That's not why I took them, Keaton thinks. He doesn't say it because if he talks back Abner might make him toss them out. Around him the tribe's finishing their final preparations, and even though they number around forty, their cloth sacks aren't even close to full. Bare necessities. 

Keaton doesn't think he understands. He likes stuff. He likes tangible reminders. He wants to be able to run his thumb over one of his rocks and remember, oh, this is from the river, or oh, that's from the abandoned cave den by the berry grove. He doesn't want to forget these things. He tried to explain it to Connie once. She looked at him all weird and went, "you're kind of bad at being a wolfskin, huh?" and howled when he pushed her. His sire made him apologise, and when he asked Keaton why he did it he told him. 

"That's not the way," his sire sighed, watching Keaton mulishly kick the ground. "It's not what we do." It wasn't the wolfskin way, maybe, but it was the Keaton way. And the Keaton way was better. So he keeps collecting his garbage, his trinkets and dirty bits and bobs, hauls a collection of junk with him wherever he goes. And when people turn their noses up at him he grins, because that’s just what he does.


	9. Corrin, Birthright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this on my phone

His hands are too tight around the handle. It's poor technique; causes unnecessary strain. If you're not careful about it you'll develop a cramp in the middle of battle, and _then_ you're fucked. Xander never said it like that, specifically, but the meaning was the same. Little prince, he'd say, shaking his head. It's a sword, not a wet dishtowel. Don't wring it like one.

Xander isn't saying anything now about his grip. He's not saying anything at all. His normally perfect posture is ruined in death, slumped over the Yato buried in his guts and bathed in a pool of his own blood. It dyes Corrin's feet like a tattoo, an uneven wave of iron curved along his soles.

Corrin pulls his blade out and shakes the blood off. Flick of the wrist, just like that, good, now draw it against your cape. Yes. One swift movement, be careful not to slice your palm. It's no substitute for a real polish, but it'll do in a pinch. It'll do.

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'Can't Live With the World' by Laura Mvula--go check it out!


End file.
